


For the Iberian Pork Cutlet Sandwich

by earliegrey



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Seirin AU, Universe Building, slow-development as slow as a slug going 0.1mm per hour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earliegrey/pseuds/earliegrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aomine decided to go to Seirin High only for the Iberian pork cutlet sandwich, of course.</p><p>(Or: Aomine follows Kuroko into Seirin, Kagami joins half a month later.) It's one of those universe building things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. there's no other reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Earlie here again! So...I had this sitting for a week since someone requested it from me on tumblr. The more I thought about it, the less I was able to fit Seirin!AoKaga in just 3 sentences, so...here I am. www
> 
> This is gonna move as slow as a snail, only because I like to ramble about 50 k words before I actually /get/ anywhere. u o u;;; Usually, with long and slow-development fics, I write for a good 20 k of material before I post, but since my prompter is probably waiting for this AU... I'll just work on it as I go!
> 
> So please take note that later in the future, previous chapters will be constantly edited (and I'll note it in my Author's note) to add material to make a better and easier read. 
> 
> And as always, if there's any mis-characterization or technical writing mistakes please excuse it! ; v ;

He's joined this high school only for the uniform and food since there was no other reason.

The uniform jacket is black rimmed with blue, and no one gives two shits if he wears a white sweater or a blue, red, orange, yellow t-shirt underneath it because he's _Aomine Daiki_ , and everyone's heard of him being a _monster_  and is scared shitless, teachers included.

The food is _great_ for a public high school, especially since every 27th, there's the limited triple delicacy Iberian pork cutlet sandwich, adorned in caviar, foie gras, and truffles.

He can't pass up such a luxurious item like that, especially not after spending his first week making great friends with the lunch ladies. Helping out with the heavy-lifting will always guarantee that he has his sandwich every month for the next three years.

The basketball team here _sucks_ though—newly formed last year, he's recognized them budding a bit in the last Interhigh but crushed so quickly just the same.

He's not here for the basketball club though.

He's here for the food, the uniform, and also the book-reading club where he—(surprise, surprise)—brings Gravure magazines to the weekly meetings and mooch off free food and drinks while adoring the curves of the luscious Mai-chan.

(Aomine _isn't_ going to admit that he only came here because he was curious about the reason Kuroko joined a school with such a weak basketball team; he _didn't_ follow him because he was worried about ~~and regretted~~ the drift and the distant gap between them, he was just—...well...curious.

 _Besides_ , Momoi was pretty happy about going to the same school as _"Tetsu-kun~"_ so there's a plus that she'll be clinging onto Kuroko more than bothering Aomine about his study habits and sleeping schedules.

There are other ways to pass his time besides being in a basketball club, Aomine tells himself.

His life doesn't have to revolve around it, after all.)

 

 ——

 

The only thing they had in common was their love for basketball.

Besides that—favorite foods, favorite subjects, even the things they read, vastly differed and if someone who didn't know that they were on the same team back in middle school was to look at them, they'd wonder why they are even friends in the first place.

Correction: _were_.

The fall out was a pretty bad one as it was simple.

Basketball had gotten boring and everyone sucked. Kuroko didn't agree with that in their second year of middle school, so—there goes their common interest.

Half a month into the spring semester, and they're in the same homeroom, Aomine seated in the back, Kuroko just two desks behind—and they haven't spoken once.

It's the worst possible seating arrangement ever, and the silence and the unresolved tension rests on his shoulders, and if that wasn't enough to gnaw guilt into his mind, Aomine was _sure_ that Kuroko was giving him the cold shoulder.

Not like he cares. (Really.)

It isn't his fault.

It isn't like Kuroko was the only poor victim in middle school, Aomine was one too—(though there were some things Aomine shouldn't have done, like play around during official matches, make bets, those sorts of things...but _what else_ could Aomine have done to quell his boredom?)

He was a victim to how massively disappointing everyone was, and how people slumped in defeat once he stepped on court—and if that isn't something to be a poor victim of, then Aomine doesn't know what is.

 

——

 

He hears from Momoi that Kuroko has joined the basketball team, and he also hears that she'll be their manager (even though the coach seems to bear a grudge against Momoi for "some reason.")

The boys, Momoi says, are very _cute,_ in the way that they have very promising growth curves and if they practice according to _Riko-chan_ 's daily menu, they'll be in tip-top shape to make it to Inter High.

She says nothing about their nonexistent chance of even making it into the semi's though.  And Aomine knows that the only way they'll ever get there is if they manage to get their hands on a miracle player—..or him.

But Aomine doesn't care.

The overbearing captain and the loud-mouthed, flat-chested coach will most likely force him into practice if he ever decides to join. It's too much effort to religiously drag himself to practice everyday after school just to play forty minutes of a game that he'll easily win on his own.

Basketball is boring. School is boring.

The only thing keeping him tied to it is the Iberian pork cutlet sandwich.

(And that's what he tells himself as he skips four out of seven classes lying on the rooftop and sleeping with his jacket over his face.)

 

——

 

Aomine wakes up every day at six am because old habits die hard.

When his brain finally wakes up at six-thirty, he finds himself a mile away from home, slowing down from his jog and into an overly familiar neighborhood street with small stores and a nice old lady that runs a grocery shop that opens every day at six in the morning.

She gives him a bag of apples that morning because she needed help lifting a box to the top shelf, and he was there, so why not.

He gets home at seven, and even then he's too worked up to fall back to sleep and too lazy to go to school on  time.

So he grabs the basketball by his door and walks to the park nearby. He shoots some hoops with a lazy flick of his wrist, sometimes he plays a one-on-one with Shaquille O'Neal back when he was twenty-two—fakes a left, then a right, left again, before spinning and dunking the ball.

But it's pointless.

Aomine's rehearsed this as many times as he's watched the old tapes, has almost every game ingrained in his mind, and played so many one-on-ones with video replays that it's effortless muscle memory.

7:40 am, he gathers the ball near the fence and heads home, his shirt drenched with the sweat from the morning run and early warm-up.

His calves doesn't burn as it used to back in middle school, his sides aren't prickling with needles and he's not gasping for air like it was his last, but Aomine feels a crushing sluggishness crawl over him. He manages to get to school by eight, barely makes it into homeroom before the bell. 

School is boring, basketball by himself is even more so.

He brings with him Gravure magazines instead of the monthly NBA subscriptions to read during class.

And when he's on the rooftop, close to drifting to sleep, he thinks up of things to do for the night—maybe look up some of Mai-chan's exclusive R-rated releases, jack off a bit to it maybe, and then tomorrow he'll sleep in.

Sounds like a good plan.

 

——

 

He's smashed about three alarm clocks back in middle school so his parents refused to buy him another one, but Aomine's eyes pop open at 5:54 am on the dot even without the annoying beep of one.

 

——

 

After graduation, when all’s said and done, Akashi has everyone stand in the center of their gym’s court; he has a  basketball in hand. “Let's make a promise that we’ll play against each other when we enter high school...and then we’d be able to see who’s basketball is the best.”

Somewhere in the back of Aomine’s mind, he _knows_ he’ll win; he’s the strongest out of his entire team,  one-on-one with any of them (even Akashi) would result in his win.

(But also in the back in his mind, he quietly wonders—if not his own teammates, the Generation of Miracles—then who is strong enough to beat him?

The answer is already there though— _himself. ~~_no one._~~_ )

——

 

"Kagami Taiga," he says, voice gruff, and his weirdo eyebrows are drawn taut like he's angry at the world (or maybe he's not used to this kind of stuff, since he looks like a stiff board and his Japanese is as shaky and _rude_ as hell.) "Nice to meet you."

The class bustles in excitement and asks him questions, like—how is Los Angelas (wherever the hell that is), what is school like over there, does he have a girlfriend, does he have a favorite sport, how is he so tall, and—is the red hair natural?

Aomine scoffs and rests his head on his hand. He and his old teammates used to receive that question before—are their skittle colored hair real?

He used to punch the daylights out of anyone who asked that. After all, it's as blue as the hair on his...-hem, nether regions, but _anyways_.

The question he really wants to ask this transfer student is—are your eyebrows for real?

But before he could muster the effort to raise his voice over his other classmates, the teacher claps his hands and tells everyone to shut up, and— _Kagami, why don't you sit there in that empty seat near the back?_

Kagami nods and awkwardly makes his way toward where Aomine sits, like he's unsure what to do with his arms and legs.

He's trying to not step on people's book bags, but he kicks into them once or twice and mutters an apology in the rudest way possible. And Aomine finds it hilarious how sincere he's trying to be even when the way he apologized was something almost like— _I'_ _m so fucking sorry._

Kagami is pretty tall and big for a freshmen so it's understandable he can't really weasel his way through the classroom without leaving collateral damage left and right. Though, when he passes by Aomine's desk, one glance is all he needs to see that they're about the same size—maybe Aomine's a tad bit taller.

 Aomine hears a screech of a chair behind him and this _Kagami Taiga_ sits down with a noisy plop and a soft grunt as he sets his bag onto the floor.

 Kuroko, who he knows sits two seats behind him (directly behind Kagami), offers his automatic— _"Hello_." which effectively _freaks_  the American returnee.

 Not like Aomine cares.

(But there's something about _knowing_ that Kagami is from America, the land where basketball came from, that sparks a curiosity in him. There's a certain smell to this guy and his build  just screams _street ball—_ and that's Aomine's thing, so maybe...just _maybe—_ )

Aomine _doesn't_ care.

Basketball is boring. School is boring.

The only thing keeping him tied to it was the Iberian pork cutlet sandwich and also the fact that his teachers are too scared to get him to stay in a majority of his classes.

He also like the breeze up there on the rooftop and the fact that Momoi bounces toward Kuroko whenever she gets the chance.

So there's no one to bother him.

At all.

It's nice and quiet. But boring as hell.

 

——

 

(Ten schools came to Teikou to scout him. Once Aomine laid down his demands, they all gathered up their papers and promptly left.

As much as these teams cared about recruiting strong players to play in the Interhigh or Wintercup, they all said about the same, stupid thing: basketball is a team sport.

While it’d be great to have Aomine,  the team would fall apart if he didn’t attend practices, become coordinated with his teammates--dumb stuff like that.

Touou Gakuen had been the best pick of the rotten apples. He had heard things about how they were scouting strong members into the team, and this school didn’t sound too bad, though the uniform was another suit almost like Teikou’s.

And Aomine thought that If they accepted him, maybe then there’d be a chance he’ll be able to play against his former teammates with a not so pathetically weak team of his own. (Though he had a feeling it’d be a one-manned team during an actual game. _No one_ can take the Miracles on, unless they’re a miracle themselves.)

“It’s difficult, but we can’t accept your demands,” the man said, finger and coiling his hair around his finger. And that was all Aomine needed to hear before he stood up, chair screeching behind him and dismissed himself.

 _Team sport_ , Aomine grumbled, crunching the flyer of Touou Gakuen in his palm.

To hell with having a team.) 

 

——

 

During lunch as he spoons at his curry from the cafeteria, Aomine overhears Kagami asking (as he finishes his tenth sandwich) Kuroko about a basketball club.

A part of him wants to turn around, provoke the transfer student with some backhanded insults until they find themselves standing on a court, Seirin jackets ripped off and abandoned on the bench, so they could have a one-on-one—

But nothing good comes out of getting his hopes up.

Nothing ever does.

 

——

 

(“Part of you is convinced you’re unbeatable, but somewhere in your heart, there’s a part of you that wants to lose,” the Touou captain said with a mocking laugh, pushing his glasses up. “You feel isolated on terms of your strength, and hope that one day someone will be your equal, or even better than you,”

“Sorry, but I have to break it to you, you’re the only one clinging onto that hope. No team will accept you at this point, you’d be better off quitting basketball.”)

The Kansai dialect echoed in his mind as he held a painfully bare flyer in his hand for a newly opened school—Seirin High.

 

——

 

"Aomine-kun," he hears Momoi say, exasperated, and the mere sound of her voice makes his nose scrunch. "Won't you come and join the basketball team?"

"Go away," he grouses and turns. He pulls his jacket and throws it over his face, effectively blocking away the sunlight and also her whining—barely though, since her high-pitched voice could probably cut through ten slabs of concrete.

"We have an American  returnee~ He's very good," she sings and her voice comes closer. He really wishes he can melt into the rooftop floor right now; he's tired and _needs_ his nap. "I think Seirin will make it to semi-finals in the inter high."

He cracks his eyes open, just a bit and stares at the sprinkle of sunlight through his jacket.  So that guy did join the team…

Aomine sniffs loudly, immediately regrets not having washed his jacket the day before, and ignores her. She grabs the sleeve of his shirt and tugs incessantly, ignoring Aomine's— _Oi, go away. Shut up. Omigod, you're so annoying._

"Come on—! At least take a look? I think you'll want to play basketball with them—" She peels away his jacket and he squints at her, half glaring and half snarling at her face overhead and at the brilliant sunlight on his face. "Especially against Kagamin—"

" _Kagamin_?"

"—he loves basketball so much, he plays like how you used to, even Tetsu-kun said—"

( _"Aomine-kun, I'm sure you'll meet someone more amazing than yourself very soon..."_

Kuroko walked past him and down the steps.  Aomine laughed then, even with the popsicle melting in the back of his shirt, because he _believed_ it so much, and he lifted his hand up for their fist bump, _"You're right."_

But he was disappointed—disgusted—time and time after that—so fuck whatever _Kuroko_ says.)

He tries to swallow but there's something thick in the back of his throat. Aomine snags his jacket away from her with more force than usual.

"Just leave me alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU will borrow a lot of material from the canon, including events and sometimes dialogue. x3 I'm kind of guessing at Aomine's character though, so...;; To be honest, I'm not exactly 100% sure where I'm going with this, uuu.;;; 
> 
> B-But I do have one goal in this fic~I really just want to focus a lot on Aomine, and his side of the story. He's pretty difficult to write cus there's a lot of things to consider about his character. And while the manga shed light to what was happening in middle school, it immediately jumped to him being a grade-A butthead in the high school. I'm just trying to flesh him out a bit more (though...probably failing so hard www;; )
> 
> So...I'm here to take a shot at it, though I think I could probably do better orz.;;;; Aaaaa, okay I'm sorry for rambling;; JUST PLEASE TREAT THIS AS AN AU, OKAY? ^q^;;;;;;; I don't know how to write them very well so....;;;
> 
> AND MULTIPLE CHAPTERS YEYEYE. I'm sorry, you'll have to wait 56 years. I take forever to write. orz; 
> 
> (And while it does feel/sound like an AoKuro fic, it's not one. 8D;;; Yey for AoKaga interaction in the next chap!...when I get to it ...)


	2. going to warn you once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Earlie here again~! Thank you so much for your support! 8D Here is the second chapter!!! I hope you enjoy~ This chapter has more Ao and Kaga interaction, ehehe. ^q^

May 27th, Aomine notices that Kagami’s brilliant dark red hair is shining ever more brilliantly, which is probably the result from having too much blood rush to his head too fast. 

That is to say, his flaming red head (and loud weird English) just makes him so _easy_ to spot in the lunch line crowd...or be swept away by it.

It’s that time of month again, when everyone empties their monthly savings to get a taste of the ultra limited, Iberian Pork Cutlet sandwich.

Rugby team forwards,  American football team’s linemen, Sumo and weight lifting guys were all there. (Seirin has a _really_ interesting line up of students, Aomine has to give them that.)

Every time Kagami tries to squeeze his way in, he’s easily pushed out, jacket shoved off his shoulder and to his elbows, screaming something like— _“THIS IS JAPANESE LUNCH TIME RUSH.”_

That guy even tosses one of his own classmates on top of the crowd and stands on him, but miserably fails when they fall right into the chaos—how stupid can an American returnee be?

Aomine laughs above the noise as he walks through the door with the nice _Employees Only_ sign, because one of the nice aunties probably saved him a sandwich with his name written next to the price label—

“Ah, sorry, Aomine-chan, I put your sandwich here for a while and I think someone took it…”

He stares, blank faced, at her. “...eh...what?”

 

——

 

“Um...I bought one.”

Kagami sputters. “What? You—?! _HOW_?”

“The flow of the crowd pushed me to the front, so I got the bread and left some money. There was also one on the side that no one seemed to want—so here.”

Kuroko places the sandwich, wrapped nice and neat, into Kagami’s hands.

 

——

 

Great.

He has no lunch for the day. Aomine’s ready to kick the next person he sees right in the balls because he’s hungry and he wants his sandwich. He doesn’t have lunch money on him since he just spent it on Mai-chan’s new magazine, so he’s going to go hungry for the first time since the start of school.

Just great.

“I heard that coach was skipping on her way to class...I wonder if there’s something she’s happy about,” Aomine hears around the corner as he shoves his hands deep into his pockets (hoping to find maybe even a 100 yen coin for a piece of candy from the vending machine.)

“Didn’t Captain warn us about her skipping? He says she skips when we have a practice match against a strong opponent, ” another frail voice says. (Aomine doesn’t find that 100 yen coin, so he hunts through his bag, overturning books and crap.)

“It’s _Kaijou_ , not only are they strong at the national level, but this year they got their hands on one of the Miracles—”

Aomine freezes, hand curling around the blue umbrella in his book bag.

“Hah, isn’t that great though?’ A familiar voice—oh, right, _Kagami_. The next part is muffled by something probably in his mouth. “Aren’t you excited playing against someone that strong?”

Aomine hears them turn the corner—down the hall to where he is.

There’s a brief one second window when Aomine and Kagami _stare_ —(Aomine glaring at the pork cutlet in his hands, and Kagami glaring, probably wondering what the hell was his problem) before Aomine scoffs, just to the side, and gives up on the vending machine.

He starts walking toward them, eyes shut as he heaves a deep sigh—Kaijou, huh. Isn’t that where Kise went? Well. Whatever. He can’t get himself to remember, not when he’s so hungry.

Aomine nearly passes by until one of them (the baldy) chimes— “Eh? Kagami, your wrapper has a name on it?”

Aomine’s eyes jerk open at this point and his joints stiffen.

“It does…?” Kagami asks through a mouthful before glancing at it. “Ah. Aomine...chan…?”

Kagami blinks and looks up with a fish-eyed stare at him (who’s conveniently there, just two meters away) just as Aomine grits his teeth and tightens his fist.

 

——

 

They got into a fist fight over an Iberian Pork Cutlet Sandwich.

Aomine bared his teeth and grabbed the half-eaten sandwich from Kagami’s hand; he sniffed in distaste, frowning at the mess Kagami’s already made from what’s left of the sandwich. _”Fucking thief, that was supposed to be mine.”_

Which made Kagami grab Aomine by the scruff of his collar, a dangerous growl emitting from the back of his throat. He hollered at him to _get your own fucking sandwich_. _I paid for this!_

Aomine looked at him, before his eyes drifted down to Kagami’s fist.

_I’m going to warn you once, let me go_ , Aomine said calmly with a half-sneer. He wasn’t in a mood to deal with this guy, all fumes and hot air packed in his head.

_Or what?_ Kagami scoffed, and his weird eyebrows look weirder up close, twitching and drawn tight. _Who the hell do you think you are anyways?_

Aomine ended up kneeing Kagami hard in the gut, which Kagami returned the favor with a loud English cuss and hook punch across his face—

Squinty, baldy, and the other unremarkable classmate helplessly tried to break them apart, but they were shoving each other against the wall, over the hallway trash cans, and into vending machines, clenched fists connecting into jaws and face.

Looking back on it, it was a very stupid thing to get into a fight  for.

In the end, they somehow managed to—without further injury—go to the nurse’s office, then to the homeroom teacher’s office, then finally, to the principal’s office.

 

——

 

His face hurts, his stomach hurts, his fists sting with the aftermath of punching Kagami in the gut and across his cheekbones—but there’s that thrum of adrenaline coursing through his veins like an old drug he hasn’t had for so long.

He feels like he’s floating over the tiles as he makes the death walk to the principal’s office with Kagami three steps ahead of him.

Everything hurts, he’s still out of breath, but there’s that _buzz_ that Aomine hasn’t felt since—...well.

_Forever._

 

——

 

“Kagami Taiga, you’re banned from club activities for this week,” the principal says, perusing through files. From the corner of his eye, Aomine sees Kagami’s bowed head snapping up, shoulders tensing and Aomine grimaces— _idiot, don’t talk back—_

And he opens his big, fat mouth—

“B-But it wasn’t my fault—”

_“Kagami,”_ the man says with warning in his voice and Kagami quickly deflates, hands falling back down to his sides. “ _Two_ weeks banned from club activities.”

At that point, the color drains from Kagami’s face and he looks like he’ll fall over any minute.

_Told you so_ , Aomine thinks with a roll of his shoulder, and winces when it strains a bit from a bruise-to-be. Kagami was not new to street fighting apparently.

“And Aomine,” the principal says with a thoughtful tone. Over thick-rimmed glasses, Aomine’s sure he’s looking at his bad school record— “Nearly two months into the semester and already twenty tardies, four skipped classes _a day_ , sleeping in class, eating in class…I’d ban you from the reading club—” Aomine lifts his eyebrows at that. “—but it says here you’ve done nothing but bring inappropriate material.”

Aomine shifts on his feet, hands deep in his pockets and he couldn’t care less. There’s no other punishment for him besides suspension and that sounds like a good break from school anyways—

“You’ll be on after school cleanup duty for a month.”

Aomine nearly chokes. _“What?”_

To his left, Kagami snorts.

“You’ll be joining him too, Kagami.”

Kagami opens his mouth to object and then—shuts it. 

 

——

 

“The fuck is his problem?” Kagami yells, smashing his fists into the shaky table at Maji burgers. Kuroko sits across him with a milkshake cupped between his hands and he looks vaguely distressed—probably because everyone’s staring at them now. 

“We had a game, a practice game this week and this asshole gets pissed off about a _sandwich—_ ”

“Coach said she’ll push it back until your suspension is over,” Kuroko says quietly and then takes a dainty sip, pausing just a moment before saying, “Please don’t get into anymore fights, Kagami-kun. We need you in our team.”

_“I know_.” And Kagami shoves his hamburger into his mouth, wincing when it grazes his cut lip. Kuroko looks at him, a bit worried but doesn’t say a thing.

 

_——_

 

They need to write an apology letter addressed to each other, but it’s actually the teachers that will read it and decide whether or not their punishments should be lessened.

Aomine writes, _I’m sorry, I was blinded with hunger and wanted to have that sandwich._

And thanks to Momoi, he also has; _Please forgive me for my ill conduct, I’ll be sure to think before I act. I shouldn’t have provoked him into a fight; I also shouldn’t have kneed him in the first place._

Kagami, in turn, writes in English: _Fuck you, you son of a bitch._

(Aomine’s clean up for a month shortens to three weeks.)

 

——

 

“Kagami-kun, I think you should write the apology letter. ”

“ _Wasn’t_ my fault.” Kagami seethes and he snaps the pencil in half. “I’m not even fucking sorry.”

 

——

 

When Aomine first walked through the gates of Seirin, cherry blossom petals stuck in his hair, everyone had probably thought (and wished for) him to join their basketball team.

And when he didn’t, people wondered.

When he joined a _book club_ of all things, people talked. But after a few days, the rumors and the murmurs about him died down. Even hearing his name no longer gave people a starry-eyed look.

After all, Aomine Daiki _—Teikou Middle School Ace, strongest of the Generation of Miracles—_ was only famous for the basketball he plays.

Without it…

Well. He was just another below average student no one gave the time of day to.

(Just what he wanted.) 

 

——

 

“ _Aomine-kun_ , they were looking forward to the match this week! Why did you—”

“Doesn’t matter if they’re going to lose anyways,”Aomine says and he rolls on his side. “Besides, he stole my sandwich—”

“That you didn’t buy!”

“It had my name written all over it,” he huffs. “Literally.”

 

——

 

“This Generation of Miracles,” Kagami once asked during the second week of practice. “If I was to play against them, how do you think I’d do?”

“Destroyed instantly,” Kuroko said too quickly for Kagami’s liking.

Kagami frowned and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the inside of his shirt. “What? Are they monsters or something?”

“Many people tend to call them that, yes.” Kuroko picked up a stray ball lolling about on the ground. “Each of them has gone to play for their own schools...” He paused and looked down at the ball; Kagami thought he saw some kind of guilt flash on his face—he wasn’t sure. “Well, all but one did.”

“What? He injured something?” Kagami said and he snatched the ball from Kuroko’s hands and dribbled it once before spinning it on his finger.

“I guess in some way he is,” he said just as Riko’s whistle ripped through the air.

Break was over.

——

 

 

“Shitty asshole,” Kagami says out loud, tying a knot to the trash bag before he pulls it out of the bin.

“Fucking eyebrows,” Aomine spits back from down the hall and grabs the recyclables.

— _Thwack._

A crushed can of juice buries into his head.

It drops to the floor with a loud clack and Kagami says with a sneering smirk—”Missed a can.”

Aomine beams it back and it smashes Kagami in the face, right between his weirdo brows.

(Aomine’s clean up for a three weeks extends back to a month.)

 

——

 

Every Tuesday and Thursday nights down at the street courts, there are basketball tournaments—knock out challenges where street players come together, randomly draw numbers and get matched up for a series of games.

Aomine rarely heads down but everyone knows him. Anyone who didn’t know his name back from when he played for Teikou, would recognize him at first glance from his bored glare and play style.

_Monster_ , some people would whisper whenever he strolls into the caged court, hands in the pockets of his white basketball shorts. And when he thinks about it, yeah, he’s a monster.

Aomine doesn’t pick a number—he never did and doesn’t need to.

“I’ll do five 3-on-1 games, first team to get ten baskets wins,” he says and there’s a rumble of dissatisfaction among the guys that crouched by the fence.

There’s always a fresh batch of guys, those who’ve never seen him before, that kick up a fuss and calls him out on how cocky he is. They’ll take him on.

(And for a split second, Aomine feels that rush because it’s been a while since he’s had any hard-headed guys come at him, teeth baring and _trying_ —)

In the length of an hour, he’s crushed them all without an ounce of real effort. The buzz is gone as fast as it came, and Aomine hurls the ball into the fence.

It clangs noisily, and Aomine reaches to scratch the back of his head, bored, with all eyes on court on him.

 And he laughs, a deep-throated sound, but hollow all the same.

“ _God_ , is there anyone that doesn’t fucking suck?”

 

——

 

It wasn’t a smart thing to do, Aomine has to admit that.

But at eleven at night, Aomine gathers his bearings, and picks himself off the gravel floor, coming home with bruises on his stomach and scrapes along his limbs (already adding to the bruises from the fight a few days ago.) 

 

Everything hurts.

 

Cowards band together in packs like a bunch of sissy dogs; say one wrong thing to offend one and everyone reacts.

Aomine touches the swell on his face and thinks he should ice it down; there’s a pack left in the freezer. His fingers are throbbing, still shaking from the adrenaline, and he goes to fetch it from the fridge.

His parents yell at him then; his mom is beside herself in rage because this is the _second_ time he’s got into a fight. And Aomine—

...doesn’t care.

That was his problem back in middle school; he cared too much, so now— he doesn't.

(He cleans up his cuts and scrapes with rubbing alcohol and sticks mini-sized bandages over his cuts.

It hurts. Everything does.)

 

——

 

“Did you fall on your way here?” The nice, old lady at the marketplace asks, as she hands him a banana milk carton as thanks for carrying in boxes of fresh produce.

Aomine blinks and then realizes that she’s noticed the ugly purple bruises on his legs, and the shallow scrape on his forearms. He tries to hide it behind some of the boxes he’s stacked up.

“Something like that,” Aomine says with a tight smile, and even that hurts just a little.

 

——

 

“I hate you so fucking much,” is the first thing Kagami says when Aomine (finally) arrives on site with his jacket thrown over his shoulder.

"Oh, you cleaned up," Aomine says with another yawn, he looks at the garbage bins, all lined with bags. Down the hall there are full bags sitting in a row like chicks waiting for mother hen to lead them away to the trash site. ”Good job."

"Of course I fucking cleaned up. Some lazy ass didn't show up an hour ago," Kagami hisses and shoves a half empty bag straight into Aomine's chest. Aomine winces and frowns at the bag—full of cans and sour-smelling shit. “Go take that and throw it away.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aomine grumbles and turns to pick up another handful of bags. He feels Kagami’s eyes boring holes into his face—it’s a bit creepy to be honest. “What the hell do you want? I’m getting the trash, all right?”

Kagami blinks himself out of his stupor, before his brows dipped into that half-angry, half-confused look. “Did...I give that one to you?”

 Aomine stares at him, at his face. (The bruises are gone from Kagami’s face now, just faint dapples of purple on his cheeks.)

“Hah?”

And he points at Aomine’s jaw—bust up, bright red with flecks of purple, courtesy of a raging street ball player from the day before. Aomine coughs, turns a bit just to hide it. “Oh this? Nah, not from you—You _wish_. You punch like a sissy.”

Aomine can literally see his veins pop as Kagami roars, “ _You wanna  get decked, fucker—”_ to which Aomine strolls away, uninterested,  dragging three bags of smelly shit across the hallway floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing their interaction. ^q^; It kind of border-lined crack, but it was really fun and I'm pretty sure that would happen. I also really liked to sneak in a little headcanon of mine about Aomine, though I have to apologize if it seemed ooc. ^q^;;
> 
> It's about adrenaline and feeling excited, so I think Aomine would have turned to street fighting (and be horribly beat.) and this would be his first time. YEAH. I just really wanted to write Aomine slipping, ah hah, he gives me so much feels. ; v ; And I like Kagami being observant--he's like a rock but I think he's pretty observant of some things. BUT YEAH okay, I'm done rambling. ^q^
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave comments if you can! I really appreciate it! ; v ;


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